INTER TRIBAL MARRIAGE: PROS, CONS, REALITIES AND CHALLENGES

We talked about Inter-tribal marriages and here is what our
guest, Modupe Ehirim had to say.

After 30+ years in marriage, I decided
to use my experience and the lessons I learnt along the way to guide other
people in their marriage journey.

Today, I'm the Founder of The Right Fit
Marriage Academy.

Many marriages are in crises largely
due to a lack of awareness of the principles that make marriage work. I'm
passionate about helping married people to understand these principles and
apply them to their own unique and personal situations. I'm convinced that marital intimacy and harmony is closer to you than
you realise.

In a sense I'm like a traffic warden who brings order into a
chaotic traffic situation at a 4-way traffic junction. If you're currently
experiencing chaos in your marriage, I can help you get back that sense of
order, harmony and intimacy.

I am from Ogbomoso in Oyo State while
my husband, Boniface, who I fondly call my Chairman is from Atta in Imo State.

Prior to meeting and marrying my
husband, I had met and interacted with Igbo people in school. I didn't really
know much about them. In fact you can say that I was blissfully unware of and
ignorant about Igbo people, their culture and tradition and way of life

My parents were very open minded.I also
went to secondary schools that promoted unity and living with people of other
tribes. So you could say that I am detribalised.

What is an inter-tribal marriage? I
would say that an inter-tribal marriage is a marriage between two people who
have their origin in different tribes or ethnic groups.

An ethnic group is a category of people who identify with
each other based on similarities such as common ancestry, language, society,
culture or nation. Ethnicity is often an inherited status based on the society
in which one lives. Membership of an ethnic group tends to be defined by a
shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language or
dialect, symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine,
dressing style, art, and physical appearance.

So I’m a Yoruba person because my
parents are Yoruba and their own parents are Yoruba.
In the same way, my Chairman is Igbo because his parents are Igbo and their own
parents too were Igbo.

What this means is that prior to our
getting married, we were nurtured in different backgrounds.

Now every man and woman that gets
married encounter the challenge of marrying someone from a different
background. When two of you are from the same ethnic group, you have some
commonality in your upbringing. You individual family traditions may differ but you have some practices, beliefs and experiences
in common.

Where you come from different ethnic origins, you bring with you to that
relationships, all the myths, suspicions, positive and negative beliefs and
experiences that your ethnic groups have.
Read: The Identity rule
For example, my husband’s parents didn’t want their son to marry me-a Yoruba
girl. Their apprehensions were not about me as a person. Their apprehensions
were based on two pillars:

1. Their perception that Yorubas don’t take marriage vows seriously based on
some Yoruba marriages they observed while they lived in Lagos.

2. Their experience of the Nigerian
Civil War which made them want to stay within the familiar zone of their ethnic
group.

Much of the challenges that
inter-ethnic relationships and marriage face arise from the ignorance of the
beliefs, values, traditions and practices of other ethnic groups apart from
yours.The challenges are further fuelled by
suspicions and negative perceptions that you and your family and ethnic group
have about other ethnic groups.

Igbo parents have a lot of history. As
a nation we have never addressed the wounds of the Civil War.

In reality, inter-ethnic marriages are
not significantly different from marriages between two people from the same
tribe.

This is because today, the environment in which we do marriage has altered
significantly. For example: I grew up in a nuclear
family (father, mother, children) with the closest relatives living very far
away. I was encouraged to aspire to great educational and career heights. I
grew up in cosmopolitan city and went to Federal Government Colleges where I
was detribalised. Then I became a Christian who takes the Bible seriously and
lives by the doctrine espoused in it.

A young man who wants to marry a Yoruba girl sees me and decides I'm suitable
wife material. His family may insist that he should marry from within their
tribe.Read: 10 Relationship Realities for men
Am I truly a Yoruba woman in the sense that he wants? We cannot immediately say
until we know what his actual expectations are.
Read: 7 Relationship Realities for women
On the contrary, 40, 50 years ago, if a Yoruba man wanted to marry a Yoruba
woman their context was mutually understood by both of them. This is because,
they grew up in the same environment, shared communal experiences and exposure.

So approaching marriage without
adequate understanding of and preparations to meet the basic requirements for
long term relationships is perhaps the reason inter-ethnic marriages have
problems.

Some questions that intending and even
already married couples in ALL marriages should ask are:

1. Is our definition and understanding
of marriage aligned?
2. Do we know and understand each other's expectations in marriage? Have we
discussed and harmonised those expectations?
3. Where our expectations vary, what are we doing about them?
4. What paradigms have we brought to marriage from our backgrounds, life
experiences and exposure? Are these paradigms beneficial to a marital
relationship?

Couples considering inter-ethnic
marriages or those already in them should ask themselves these additional
questions:
1. What are some of the traits of your partner’s ethnic group that you are
apprehensive about and have difficulty adjusting to?
2. What are some of the interactions between your ethnic groups that have had
negative impact on the psyche of your partner’s ethnic group? How have your
individual families internalised and/or dealt with those negative impacts?
3. How will you respond to and cope with the stress that accompanies moving out
of the comfort zone of your ethnic group and adjusting to the ethnic group of
your spouse? Both men and women need to think hard about this because, even
though the woman moves to join her husband in his ethnic group, the man also
has to relate with his wife’s people who will continue to live in their own
ethnic space.
4. What will be the attributes of culture of the new family that you and your
partner will build?

No matter how well adjusted partners
are, the reality is prior to the time they get married they have lived largely
different lives. Conflict is inevitable because of this.

Their understanding of this and preparation to
handle it may well be the deciding factor in whether the marriage succeeds or
ends in divorce.

Actually conflict is not a bad thing. Rather it is a signal that a
couple think dfferently on an issue that is very important to the two of them. Having good conflict resolution skills and communication skills is what couples
need.

Having laid this foundation, I will
look at the pros and cons of inter-ethnic marriages.
In practice as I explained earlier, inter-ethnic marriages are not
significantly different from marriages where the couple are from the same
ethnic group. This is because
today, by the time a person gets married, they have lived in and experienced a
number of differing cultures which greatly impacts their worldviews and
perspectives about life

Pros of Inter-Ethnic Marriages

1. The most significant pro for inter-ethnic marriages is that it often
strengthens the resolve of the couple to make their marriage work. Usually in
order to overcome the objections that their family and friends raise, they address the issues that can cause stress and adopt a
united front. They also don’t want the naysayers to say “We told you so.” if
their marriage should fail.
2. Couples who succeed in inter-ethnic marriages grow as individuals and
support each other.
3. Couples are more open minded about things that they are not familiar and are
willing to explore

Cons of Inter-Ethnic Marriages
1. Both husband and wife have to accept new realities of doing things in ways different
from their relatives and friends.
2. One or both partners may discover that they don’t really want to shift from
the paradigms mindsets and experiences that they are
familiar and uncomfortable with.
3. Couples may have to live with the fact that their relatives refuse to accept
the ethnic group of their partner.

I have been in an inter-ethnic marriage
now for 32 years. My marriage to my husband cannot be said to be Igbo or
Yoruba. There are many attributes of the Igbo culture in our relationship and
in our home. There are also attributes of Yoruba culture. We also have attributes of the English culture because my
husband studied and lived in England for quite a number of years.

At the same time, we have agreed, that our children are of Igbo origin, because
both Igbo and Yoruba cultures are paternalistic.

People outside our marriage do not
always agree with how we have chosen to model our family. Some Igbo people
think my husband is liberal in allowing somethings. Some Yoruba people think
that I have allowed myself to be subsumed by Igbo culture. My Chairman and I
constantly remind ourselves that it is our marriage not theirs.

WE participate in both cultures because
we love our families and kindred. WE also are helping our children to
understand their unique origin of having parents from different ethnic groups.
Our families and kindred show respect for our diffrent ethnic groups now.

Daily we have experiences that make us re-think and redefine our
family culture and practices. But our family values remain the same year in
year out. Interestingly our family values were derived from our (my husband and
I) parents’ values which they passed on to us. And even though we came from
different ethnic groups, the values that our parents held as important and taught
us are similar.

So I’ll conclude with this. Inter-ethnic marriages are not significantly different from marriages of two
people within the same ethnic group..

What is important is how knowledgeable
are you about the principles that make marriage to work.

Question: So, how does one persuade the
family to eventually agree despite their negative experiences or bias?

Modupe: This is a good question you
have asked. First you must seek to understand them before trying to get them to
understand you. Ask them questions. Dig deeper to understand their fears and
apprehensions. Engage them to look at the individual. Point out to them the
individual people from that ethnic group who they have had positive
interactions with. Be patient, very patient with them.

About speaker:

Modupe Ehirim, is the founder of The Right FitMarriage Academy and a Family Life Practitioner. She works with young engaged
and married couples to lay a foundation for and build a happy and lifelong
marriage. She is a Family Systems Engineering Practitioner and a Certified
SYMBIS (Save Your Marriage Before It Starts) Facilitator. The SYMBIS Assessment
gives you a personalized road map to making your marriage everything it was
meant to be.

A 1980 First Class graduate of Chemical Engineering from
the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), she also bagged an
M.Sc. (Process Analysis) from University of Aston-in-Birmingham in UK in 1982.
In 2008, she obtained the Certificate in Entrepreneurial Management under the
Goldman Sachs 10000 Women Initiative which provided business and management
education for women entrepreneurs at the Pan African University, Lagos.

She is a member of NECA’s Network of Entrepreneurial Women
(NNEW). She is also a member of the Management Committee for Lady Ibiam Girls’
Secondary School, Enugu.

Modupe is an avid reader who mentors young people, aiding
them to chart their lives’ paths. She is happily married to Boniface, her
husband of over 30 years, who hails from Imo State. Together, they have
together four children.

I consider it a
huge privilege to be God’s mouthpiece on earth. I pretty much like that I have
to learn from Him and the capable others he has planted in my life while
passing on this knowledge to others as He wills. Being His
mouthpiece means I have to travel, meet people, and go to places are like or
not like (yes sometimes you don’t feel like being somewhere). This exposes me to a whole lot of information
and helps me build valuable relationships. I’ve been a guest
minister to many in the last twelve (12) years of my life. Pretty much since I was
a teenager. I’ll like to share with you a few things I believe young people
should never do when they are out as guest ministers. 1.Don’t Isolate yourself from responsibilities There
are times when the host might place you in their home or someone else’s rather
than a hotel. Most young people tend to cross their legs and wait for breakfast
in bed like the anointing would lift if they picked up a pin. When
you’re placed in a home rather tha…

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mine. Ada
(Not real name) and I met at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in our first
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we graduated four years later and you know how life happens. We haven’t really
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since after school and how we both are still fervently loving and serving the
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